preparation to understand where
his travelers were already spending
their food dollars and his work to
match that back to the Dinova program to ensure effective coverage.

Meritor’s solid corporate cardprogram provided the linchpin,said Reynaert. “I took on corpo-rate card about three years ago, so Iknew we had great data. At Meri-tor, the only way you can travel iswith a corporate card, so our com-pliance really is 100 percent. Andit was easy to share that informa-tion with Dinova to make sure wewere a match.”Armed with the understand-ing that a company can’t mandaterestaurant choice like it can carduse, however, he rolled out the din-ing program with a soft launch.He put the program in place andadvised some administrative staffto steer business to the Dinovanetwork but otherwise let the pro-gram travel by word of mouth.

“Without even pushing theprogram, we can go back and saywe recovered dollars, and it reallyhelps our operations,” said Reyn-aert, who proceeded to cook up acommunications campaign for thedining program after launching aSharePoint site for Meritor travel-ers. “We’ve got a link on the sitethat says, ‘Take a bite out of mealexpense.’ I love puns. So it kindof grabs their attention, and theprogram is easy to use. And if youwant to save the company somedollars, jump on in.”

Meetings & More
Administrative staff and meeting
planners were key constituents in
Reynaert’s restaurant rebate strategy. The company was rolling out a
strategic meetings policy around the
same time, so extending the concept
to meetings was a no-brainer.

planners can use a new Dinova platform that pinpoints private dining
options and provides virtual tours
and other information pertinent
to group dining. Dinova has forged
relationships with high-profile restaurants in cities like Las Vegas
to help meeting planners organize
creative dine-arounds and garner

If you have a global card, capture
that data and provide that to the
dining network, too.

;Prepare To Double Dip

Driving restaurant spend to the T&E
card will enhance the card rebate
and increase the rebate from Dinova.

;Use It For Meeting Meals
Meritor increases credit
limits on the T&E card to
accommodate procurement of
food and beverages for meetings;
alternately, travel managers could
mandate meetings cards and
aggregate that data to enhance
their managed dining programs.

“

”

JACK REYNAERT

substantial rebates in the process.
“It’s a really phenomenal program,”
said Reynaert, “A lot of times meeting planners want to break away
from a hotel. You don’t want to be
locked into a single facility.”

What’s In It For Me?

At the end of the day, though,adoption could falter for a pro-gram that can’t be mandated ormeasurably enforced. Dinova’sanswer was to roll out a loyaltyprogram in which travelers reappoints while corporations retainthe rebates. “We are launchingthat,” said Reynaert. “Our peoplelove points, and they don’t haveto do anything but use the corpo-rate card. It’s easy for them, andthey know it helps us offset costs.… This is just one more elementof the model that enforces howeffective the program is.”Now that Meritor is activelysteering employees to the programand the loyalty program is in place,Reynaert said the positive responsecould enable him to double his“soft launch” rebates.

“Our travelers are always looking for guidance, so when someone
is traveling into a city they haven’t
been to before, we actually suggest
restaurants for them. That drives
up the volume, which we appreciate, and [the traveler] appreciates
the help.”